"When is he going--your friend?" she one day asked her husband. "For my
part, he tires me frightfully."
"Not for a week yet, dear. I can't understand; he gives you no trouble."
"No. I should like him better if he did; if he were more like others,
and I had to plan somewhat for his comfort and enjoyment."
Gaston took his wife's pretty face between his hands and looked tenderly
and laughingly into her troubled eyes.
They were making a bit of toilet sociably together in Mrs. Baroda's
dressing-room.
"You are full of surprises, ma belle," he said to her. "Even I can never
count upon how you are going to act under given conditions." He kissed
her and turned to fasten his cravat before the mirror.
"Here you are," he went on, "taking poor Gouvernail seriously and making
a commotion over him, the last thing he would desire or expect."
"Commotion!" she hotly resented. "Nonsense! How can you say such a
thing? Commotion, indeed! But, you know, you said he was clever."
"So he is. But the poor fellow is run down by overwork now. That's why I
asked him here to take a rest."
"You used to say he was a man of ideas," she retorted, unconciliated. "I
expected him to be interesting, at least. I'm going to the city in the
morning to have my spring gowns fitted. Let me know when Mr. Gouvernail
is gone; I shall be at my Aunt Octavie's."
That night she went and sat alone upon a bench that stood beneath a live
oak tree at the edge of the gravel walk.
She had never known her thoughts or her intentions to be so confused.
She could gather nothing from them but the feeling of a distinct
necessity to quit her home in the morning.
Mrs. Baroda heard footsteps crunching the gravel; but could discern in
the darkness only the approaching red point of a lighted cigar. She knew
it was Gouvernail, for her husband did not smoke. She hoped to remain
unnoticed, but her white gown revealed her to him. He threw away his
cigar and seated himself upon the bench beside her; without a suspicion
that she might object to his presence.
"Your husband told me to bring this to you, Mrs. Baroda," he said,
handing her a filmy, white scarf with which she sometimes enveloped her
head and shoulders. She accepted the scarf from him with a murmur of
thanks, and let it lie in her lap.
He made some commonplace observation upon the baneful effect of the
night air at the season. Then as his gaze reached out into the darkness,
he murmured, half to himself: